


Structures of the Superimposed

by ProxyWords



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), It's all a bit weird, London, Magical Realism, Modern setting AU - Except the Force is real, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProxyWords/pseuds/ProxyWords
Summary: An arm shot out – the man's – and Rey realised that this was it, this was her ending. She was lifted up, paralysed mid air, only her eyes still within her control. And yet, she couldn't move them away from the face of the man who would become her murderer. Long and twisted, framed by darkness, this was what evil looked like.A dark eye twitched, Rey's neck twisted upwards, her throat exposed.“I won't let you, Ben,” she heard Leia say._________________________________Rey is a young Londoner, just getting by in the city. One night transforms her life, and she is plunged into a world which makes her question everything, especially herself.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Structures of the Superimposed

**Author's Note:**

> Like a lot of people, a few months ago I started thinking up my own version of ep IX. It's been fun and it's been challenging, and I have a notebook with pages and pages of notes planning out the plot. I'm doing it for no other reason than the fact that I just really enjoy it, but omg storytelling is so hard (much respect to all you writers). So, to try and get my brain flowing, I let my mind wander (out into the streets of the city I can't walk around), and this chapter is the result.

\-------

The hot bricks scorched against her back, so she swayed where she stood, only leaning against them fully for a couple of seconds at a time. The wall soaked up the midday sun in summer, though in winter the tall, grimy, backs of buildings which penned in the courtyard would often block out most of the light. Rey liked feeling the heat radiating off the wall's surface, in the same way she enjoyed standing in bare feet on hot patio tiles, letting the warmth seep under her skin. She didn't, however, enjoy the wafting smell of cigarette smoke which emanated from the man standing next to her. It mixed horribly with the already too polluted air of central London.

“Are you working Saturday?” one of her co-workers asked from beside her.

“Saturday...” she idly thought aloud, “oh, no, I've got Friday afternoon and Saturday off. I'm here on Sunday though,” she said when her brain had finally clicked into place.

“Lucky. I read that Saturday's going to be the hottest, the kitchen's going to be fucking boiling.”

Rey laughed mildly, a polite non-answer, which her co-worker, Dan, took as a sign to keep going.

“This country's not designed for hot weather, this building manages to be freezing in winter and the hottest place on earth during our two weeks of summer.”

“The price you pay for a pretty building,” Rey replied. 

“Pretty...” he elongated the word, questioning it, “pretty impractical.” 

Rey watched as he took a final drag of his by-then stub of a cigarette, before dropping it underfoot.

“You better pick that up Dan.”

He laughed, “have you seen this place Rey? Its filthy already.”

“No need to make it worse then,” Rey said, heading back to the dingy kitchen door. “Oh, and Anya told me to tell you that they've run out of Creme Brule, so if anyone orders it then tell them its off the menu.” She gave a quick smile as he nodded his acknowledgement, then walked back into the stifling heat of the kitchen. 

The shift was long and exhausting, tempers always flared during hot weather and the day's customers had been more impatient than usual. As Rey walked through the bustling Soho streets and away from _Cafe Mon Cala_ , the over priced restaurant she worked at, she yearned to be home and free from her tight-collared, long sleeved waitress uniform. The pavement was busy with slightly sweaty looking office workers, who were gathered outside pubs in guffawing gaggles and close-knit circles. She wondered what sort of jobs they did, and whether she herself would ever do one of those jobs. Would she fit in, if she was dressed in those clothes, and laughed at those jokes? As she walked into the road to avoid one such group, she drew herself up a little taller. Part of her felt good enough for anyone, for anything. But yet, she couldn't ignore the doubt that bubbled underneath the structure of her pride. 

If the outside was bad, the stuffy heat of the tube was even worse. The crowded carriage compartment stunk of perspiration and the lingering smell of drinks from a somewhat rowdy group of guys by the door. Rey shared a conspiratorial look of annoyance with a woman standing opposite her in the carriage, and felt vindicated that her sentiment of mild annoyance was shared. She then determinedly avoided eye contact for the rest of the journey, already having met her quota of stranger interaction for the day. Her desire for some fresh air was so great, that by the time the tube finally reached her stop, she decided quickly to bypass the growing queue for the escalator and jog up the exceedingly long staircase to the exit instead. Admittedly, she did slightly regret her choice about halfway up. But, upon a quick gaze behind her, she noted with smugness that the man with the orange rucksack who she would have been stood behind was far below the progress that she had made to the surface. The rest of the walk home was cooler, the side streets far less busy than the center of town, and a welcome evening breeze played with the wisps in her hair. 

The flat she shared with her room-mates, Finn and Poe, was alive with sound when she made it through the door.

“Fucking kidding me,” Finn screamed, his voice reaching an octave it rarely achieved.

“I told you the sniper was there, if you'd listened instead of trying to melee that idiot who ran for you, you could of—”

“Yeah, exactly,” Finn cut over Poe, “he ran at me, what was I supposed to do, stand still?”

“Oh, hey Rey,” Poe said upon hearing her presence the room, his eyes not leaving the TV.

“Hey Rey,” Finn echoed, his eyes similarly glued in place, “go again?” he continued to Poe.

“Yeah OK, quick last game,” Poe responded, a line Rey had heard many times before, often preceding several more hours of playing. “Rey, you in? We might actually win if you play.”

Rey flopped onto the free sofa, sighing as she did so. “Nah, I'm knackered.”

“Bad day? Not get those hours you asked for?” Finn actually averted his eyes to look at her that time.

“I mean, the manager on today put me down for Sunday, but she basically admitted that the chain's in a pretty bad way financially so they're giving out as few hours as possible at the minute. I guess I'm lucky to still have an eighteen hour contract. At the minute, at least.”

“I'm sorry, hey if there's anything we can do?” Finn said.

“It's fine,” Rey replied as she hauled herself off the sofa, only moments after sitting down. “But thank you,” she added softly. 

She headed back into the flat's narrow hallway and then through the doorway to her bedroom. It was south facing and had bottled the days heat, so first thing she did was stride over to broad, sash window and push it wide open. It was beginning to darken, and from her view over the gardens she saw lights turning on in the small windows of tall houses. Sounds drifted to her too: the heavy beat of music in a language she couldn't understand, children shouting as they played in the final glow of the day's sun, sirens from police cars somewhere off in the not-too-far distance. 

Movement, in a garden a few houses across, caught her eye, and she watched as one of her elderly neighbours unpegged her washing from a clothesline. She was actually one of the few neighbours Rey had spoken to, albeit only a couple of times, to say good morning or once to help carry shopping up the stairs to her door. It's not unusual in London, to know so little of those who live around you. Each tall terraced house was split into several flats, and Rey hadn't even ventured further than passing small talk with the occupants of the flats above and below her own. But as she watched the elderly lady hobble to gather her clothes in the growing dark, a sadness spread inside of Rey. The lady lived alone, Rey was aware of that.

She herself had felt alone for a long time, moving around frequently as a child, never staying in one place long enough to build lasting friendships. She met Finn in her first part time job, and they had got along well. He was her first real friend and it had changed her life. She had someone to hang out with, lean on, joke with. Finn was the kind of guy who got along with everybody, something Rey respected, and admittedly, envied about him. 

Poe and Finn went further back, Poe had helped him out of some sort of situation which Finn didn't really talk about. It was good timing which lead to the three of them living together, they had all been looking for somewhere and Poe's uncle had been looking for tenants. Because of the family connection, they split the equivalent of only two peoples rent between the three of them. This meant that Rey lived in an area that she could not have afforded otherwise, though even then she still struggled at times. It felt good, to live with people she liked and trusted, but a nagging fear for the future still played at the fringes of her mind. What if the place was sold, the rent went up, she lost what little income she had, one of the guys wanted to move out? Rey fended for herself day by day, week by week, and had little choice in the matter. No grand scheme, no backup plan. She was stable for now, but always felt one strong wave away from capsizing. 

By the time the lady had started taking her rather large pairs of underwear off the washing line, Rey decided it was time to stop snooping. She tugged the curtains shut and freed herself from her work clothes, aiming them at the flimsy hamper at the end of her bed, she landed the throw. After slipping into old pyjamas, and making a stop at the fridge to grab whatever comfort food she had left on her shelf, she headed back towards the squabbling at the TV.

“Still up for another teammate?”

“Always,” Finn grinned, and Poe chucked her a controller. 

\-------

The Friday morning shift at the restaurant was hectic, they were understaffed and unusually busy. Just after eleven, her phone vibrated in her pocket and she ducked into the loo to quickly check it. The text was from Finn, letting her know he had gotten a last minute shift that evening from a hospitality company he'd signed up to: he couldn't make it, did she want to take his place? Rey smiled. As far as she knew, Finn didn't have anything on that night, he had explicitly mentioned it the previous evening. If there was one thing Finn wasn't, it was subtle. But he knew she was low on funds at the moment, and she would never stop being grateful for having a friend who looked out for her. She texted back that she could cover and asked for the details, before sliding the phone into her pocket and venturing back out into the loud chatter of the dining room. 

The event she was working that evening was on the edge of Mayfair, a part of town Rey rarely visited. With its luxury shops and ten-million-pound apartments, it offered Rey little. Her shift had finished in the early afternoon, but she had decided to hang around in central to avoid paying the return tube fair to her flat. As such, she had arrived early, and had begun wandering around the surrounding streets, wasting time until she could be perfectly on time. Rey didn't like to be early, or late for that matter. Early meant awkward waiting and pained small talk, and late meant unreliable, which she never wanted to be. So instead, on this particular evening, she amused herself by gawking at the supercars parked lazily on the side of the road, and the shop windows with elaborate displays of stuffed zebras and ornamental vases. 

Sandwiched together, side-by-side, each building was unique. Dark, London brick and black railing sat attached to white plaster facade and flower boxes, tall next to short, wide next to very, very narrow. Yet there were similarities, all had high, rectangular windows, and all were supremely manicured. Even the betting shop, of which there were at least five knackered looking ones dotted around Rey's local area, was somehow posh, with frosted windows and potted hedges parked by the door. 

As she wandered down one such stretch of road, a group of well dressed men pushed towards her on the pavement, and sensing an upcoming collision, she quickly stepped out into the road in order to dodge them. She realised, almost immediately, that she hadn't even checked the road before stepping into it, and she flung her neck around quickly to look for cars as she jumped back onto the pavement. The men, however, had been oblivious to the whole manoeuvre they had forced her to make, and she watched over her shoulder as they continued down the street. Well fuck you, she thought. Exactly the sort of people she wanted to avoid in life. But when she checked her phone moments later, she saw that it wasn't long before she had to be there, and with a dread settling in her stomach, she started heading towards the location Finn had texted to her. 

The entrance Finn's directions led her to was at the bottom of a set of damp, concrete steps in a small, off-street basement. The building was Georgian, so it was very obviously built as the servants entrance, which it evidently still functioned as. After Rey had pressed the door's small buzzer and had been shooed inside, she found her way to a small room off the kitchen where the other evening staff had been shoehorned into to wait.

“Name?” A woman sat by the door said, clipboard and pen in hand.

“It's Re— Reyfinn. But I go by Finn usually, so I may be down as that...” Of course she had stumbled on the one thing she had to get right.

If the woman was unconvinced, she didn't show it. Rey supposed that even if she was, she probably didn't care.

“Thanks for coming so last minute Finn. We usually have these types of events staffed way in advance, but a couple of people dropped out last minute and because of your experience the agency passed on your details.”

Her experience. To be fair, she had worked long enough as a waitress to feel confident in the role, but _Cafe Mon Cala_ was only deceptively fancy, it was aimed at impressing tourists with cake laden window displays, gold rimmed furniture and an overpriced menu. The mouse infested cupboard in the basement, which the staff passingly referred to as 'the mouse house', was a side to the restaurant that the guests decidedly did not see. Finn had started pretty young, had worked his way up in hospitality for years. He was the sort of waiter who could correctly identify a fish fork from a desert fork. Rey, on the other hand, wasn't totally sure that a fish fork even was a type of fork. It dawned on her, in a burst of sudden panic, that she wasn't exactly sure what she had gotten herself into. She didn't even really know what she would be doing, and whether she could do it.

It turned out that Rey could do it, when 'it' was carrying a tray of champagne flutes around the drinks reception. She had also sneaked Finn a text soon after she had arrived to ask what the event actually was. 'Some kind of fundraising thing probably', he had helpfully texted back, which left her none the wiser. 

The room Rey was stationed in was wide with a high ceiling and tall, Georgian windows. Elegant white plasterwork trimmed the ceiling and edged the wooden floors. It was beautiful, Rey thought, just the feel of the room, the history which the walls silently bled into the air. What it was witness to, what events it had set the scene for through its hundreds of years, she'd never know, and it captivated her to imagine. Yet Rey couldn't help the edge of gloominess which accompanied her admiration. She rarely went into these kinds of buildings, these kind of spaces.

As the guests arrived, the room filled up quickly. It wasn't a small event, but it was not large either, and Rey thankfully felt fairly confident in navigating the space with her tray of champagne without being jostled or pushed. The thought of spilling the tray's contents on one of the lady's fashionable dresses, or one of the men's formulaic, but no doubt expensive, suits, filled her with dread.

The attending party were clearly planning on drinking, and drinking a lot, and she had to restock numerous times in the first half hour. 

“Thank you,” a man said as he somehow managed to pick several flutes up off her tray at once, passing them to the group he was stood with as he turned back around.

She quickly offered the last remaining glasses to a group of older men with reddish faces, before she gathered up the used and returned to the back room for what felt like the millionth time.

She wasn't the only one who'd run out, another of the servers who she'd seen circulating amongst the room was already ahead of her.

“Already out of pre-poured glasses I see, God they're getting through it,” she remarked to him as she eyed a bottle-laden shelf lining one of the store rooms.

“Not as bad as some of the nights I've done,” the guy said with a lifted eyebrow, as he set about popping the cork out from a bottle he had just picked up.

“Oh, wait,” Rey started, as she noted the tray of dirty glasses which had been haphazardly set down on the edge of a shelf positioned right behind his elbow, “watch out, the gla—” She was cut off by the rattle of glass against glass as his elbow impacted upon the shelf and the tray began to tip.

She jutted her arms out quickly, and although her brain flashed up that she had missed it, she somehow felt cold metal on her fingertips. A stray glass had already slipped off however, and was moments away from shattering around her co-workers feet. Without thinking, because if she had she wouldn't of even thought of doing what she did next, she lifted up her foot and stuck it under the glass's falling trajectory. It landed sideways on the leather top of her shoe, and she lowered her foot quickly as it did so to absorb the momentum of its fall.

“Oh fuck, sorry,” the guy said, bottle of wine successfully open in his hands, “that was impressive though.”

Rey picked up the glass still resting on her lifted foot, and placed it firmly out of the way. She brushed it off, “I'm just very protective of glasses,” she joked.

“Fast reflexes you've got there,” a voice said from the doorway, and they both turned to see a women in a shimmering silver gown stood just outside the room's entrance.

The woman looked familiar, and it took Rey a moment to realise who it was. Princess Leia was stood only a few metres in front of her. Princess Leia of the former Aldaanese royal family, the ones who were ousted when Alderaan was brutally invaded. Princess Leia, the anti-war advocate, Princess Leia the political commentator, the outspoken democracy campaigner, the tabloid newspaper headliner. Princess Leia, who was looking directly at Rey with questioning eyes.

“Thanks,” Rey muttered, and then, after a pause, “can I help you at all?”

Rey kicked herself internally, but Leia's gaze relaxed a little, “no, thank you. I'm just finding Maria for a quick update before the speech. You carry on.” She smiled politely, and then she left.

“That was...” she trailed off.

“Yep,” the other waiter agreed.

“Why was she back here? Who's Maria?” Rey asked.

“Oh, Maria's the manager. I think this whole event is in aid of something Leia's doing.” The guy grabbed the tray which was still resting in Rey's hand. He thanked her again before heading back out, but it took Rey a little longer. 

Her heart was beating embarrassingly fast. She refused to believe she was starstruck, but could at least admit to herself that unexpectedly talking to someone so well known had left her a little agitated. It felt very strange, she'd never met a famous person before, and in a way, she kind of forgot they were actually real. She knew objectively that they were, because of course they were, but it was different, to actually witness someone in person.

Several minutes after Rey had returned to her role in the reception room, the sounds of laughing, drinking, and general small talk began to die down. She saw Leia on the far side of the room, raised slightly above the crowd gathering in front of her, microphone in hand. 

“Ladies and gentleman, I'd like to firstly thank you for coming this evening. I myself know how tedious fine food and endless champagne can be...” a laugh passed through the crowd. 

“But it means a great deal that you did decide to come this evening, because apart from the lure of delicious food, wine, and company,” Leia smiled, “it means you also believe, like I do, that we must do everything we can to ensure that we all continue to live in a fair and just society.

“As you may know, I've been campaigning for democracy, in many forms, for several decades. It is a cause I am devoted to, and this devotion began when I was a young girl who witnessed the devastating effects of war and corruption in my home nation.”

A guest who was standing just in front of Rey ducked into the ear of the person beside her, “I love getting a democracy lecture from a literal princess,” Rey heard the woman say in an overly loud whisper.

Rey felt mildly indignant at the comment, Princess Leia had been a vocal about this topic for decades. But, then again, the guest was technically right. It was somewhat of an oxymoron, and it had been commented on before.

A light chuckle breathed through the room then, the reaction to a remark of Leia's which Rey hadn't caught.

“So I will keep this brief. We have the great honour of including in our ranks this evening, Amilyn Holdo, director of Raddus, a new project dedicated to researching the impact of big data on social change. She will be kindly gracing us with more details on the project once I've stopped jabbering.

“I'd also like to thank Mr Marcus Stone for attending this evening, we are delighted you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to be here with us tonight,” Leia said, sending a warm smile to her left. Through the gaps between heads and shoulders, in the direction Leia was looking, Rey saw a wine glass be lifted in acknowledgement. Marcus Stone, the name rung a bell, but from where she knew it she could not place. 

“I am very pleased to announce that Mr Stone has been working closely with the Organa Foundation in recent months, and has decided to make a substantial contri—” 

From across the room, Rey could see the Princess's expression change. 

“Contri...” she began again, but again words failed her.

Stood as she was at the furthest side of the room, Rey could only see the backs of heads, but she assumed that the faces of the crowd were as confused as hers was. Leia still hadn't spoken and the room hung silent, as if suspended in-between her words. Rey waited, expecting something to happen, someone to take the microphone from Leia's frozen hand, for the guests to start muttering questions of 'what was going on?' But instead of any such explicable action happening, the world chose to crumple into chaos.

Glasses cracked and splattered and trays clanged as they hit the wooden floorboards. Next, the people fell, but not in the way that they should have, or would have, had things of been normal. Bodies fell slowly, ignoring the speed at which things fall, and ignoring too the impact that they should have made upon meeting the floor. Why or how this was happening, Rey's thoughts in that moment could not untangle, but that it was happening injected a sudden, poisonous shot of panic into her bloodstream, and Rey became simultaneously very aware of her heart beating furiously in her chest and the limitations of her own field of vision as she whipped her head around trying to comprehend the scene. 

Not everyone fell at once, some only began whilst others had already crumpled to the base of where they once stood, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that the longer Rey stood upright, the more she was becoming an outlier. She could run, and her first impulse was to do just that, but when her eyes darted to her nearest escape, the entrance on the far right of the wall just behind her, she saw the door frame blocked by a solitary upright figure. Large and impending, dressed all in black, he stood with his eyes glued in the direction of Leia. When Rey looked to where Leia had stood, and with relief saw that she was still standing, she registered Leia staring back at the man with an expression that Rey had neither the time nor the composure to read. 

She had to do something, apart from the man and Leia she was by then the only person still decidedly on two feet, though some were still in the process of falling. She had to try to survive, as although she did not understand the danger which surrounded her, she knew instinctively that if she did not do something right then, it would be a danger she could die to. So she fell, not with the same, unnatural lack of suspension as the other bodies did, but she fell as softly and quietly as she could manage, using her elbow to break her fall and to stop the tray she was still gripping from clattering. She let her hand go limp once she was on the ground, yet letting go of the tray left her feeling inexplicably so much more vulnerable.

“Ben,” Leia said, and Rey snapped her eyes shut. She heard footsteps, someone was moving. “Ben,” Leia said again, this time from a position closer to Rey, “what is going on?”

There was no reply to Leia's words, and Rey fought against the instinct to open her eyes and take in as much information as she could.

“Ben, why are you doing this?”

“I didn't come here to chat,” the man spat in a low voice.

“Why did you come here?”

Again there was silence, and it rung in Rey's ears until it was interrupted, yet again, by the sound of footsteps. Rey opened one eye, and from her sideways view against the floor,  
she could see that Leia had moved closer to the man, Ben, who was still stood in front of the doorway, only one side of his face visible to Rey. In stark contrast to Leia's small frame the man was intimidatingly tall, with harsh features and black hair which licked around his face. 

“Don't come any closer,” he said.

“Ben, whatever they're making you do, you don't have to do it. It's not too late, trust me, I can protect you.”

The man laughed, but it was a hollow sound, short and sour. Although Rey had absolutely no grasp on what was taking place before her, Leia's words managed to mangle any kind of comprehension that Rey's mind had scrambled to concoct. Leia, who stood so small and vulnerable, hunched slightly with age, was offering protection to the towering man, villain, who stood before her.

“You can't protect me,” he said, “but you are right that it's not too late. It isn't, for you.”

Leia did not move.

“Things are changing, for the better, and even if you don't believe me now, you _will_ see,” he said, “but we all have to make sacrifices.”

“And what are you prepared to sacrifice, Ben?” Leia said, her tone colder than Rey thought possible.

Ben said nothing, and Rey was glad for it. She did not want to know what this man was prepared to do.

“You know this isn't how this works any more,” Leia said, “what was the point of doing it like this?”

“Sometimes,” Ben said, “you have to return to the old to make the new.”

He moved then, stretching his arm out in front of him with sudden speed, and Rey's already hammering heart accelerated further. She felt sure she would give herself away with the sound it was making, it was reverberating through her rib cage, she could feel it in her skull, her jaw, she could taste the blood in her mouth. 

“What a line,” Leia said, “did you get that one from Snoke?”

One of the many sunken shapes on the floor rose suddenly then, and like a limp puppet, its toes dragging along the floor, its arms dead at its side, it flew towards the man's outstretched hand. It stopped abruptly, only a few feet away from his fingertips. The face was familiar to Rey. Was it Stone? The man who only moments ago Leia was thanking as she made her speech in front of a listening, living, audience.

She shut her eyes again, certain that whatever was about to happen was something she did not want to witness. She waited for someone to speak, but no one did. For several seconds she heard nothing. And then, finally, a sound. A quick whistle of air, something was moving. Her eyes sprung open, she couldn't help it, and she saw a flash of silver whip through the air, and then, half a second later, red, as blood swelled around the metal sticking out from the person's right eye. It was, she realized redundantly, the polished handle of one of the knives from the dining room, yet now it was firmly set in the centre of the levitating man's eye socket. 

She shut her eyes again, squeezing them tight, as if that would eradicate the image that was now scorched into her retinas. She couldn't remember if his face had had an expression, but the picture she saw branded into her mind was one in which his mouth was wide, his eyebrows creased, a silent scream contorting his face. She couldn't recall the decision to open her eyes again, and yet once again they were open, searching the air for the dead man, needing to know if he had felt pain, if it could be found on his face. But he was gone, physically gone. Leia was still stood upright, staring blankly at the man she called Ben, and he himself stood in the same position, his hand still outstretched. From her own, low perspective on the floor, the other fallen shapes blocked her view, but she could see a shimmer of silver at the bottom of where the man had previously been suspended, and she realised he must of fallen to the ground once again, the knife still lodged in place. 

Leia did not react, she stood frozen, her eyes still locked onto Ben's face. Leia understood, Rey realised, this whole situation made sense to her in some way. Then the man, Ben, the murderer, moved, he turned suddenly, his arm returning to his side, his whole frame turning on his heel, towards the door behind him. As he did so, his eyes swept around him, landing quickly, momentarily, on Rey's own watching eyes. She shut them. He hadn't seen her, he wouldn't have noticed. He was just turning around, their eyes hadn't met, you couldn't tell at this distance. With her eyes closed and the room silent, Rey was enveloped in black uncertainty. She was utterly vulnerable; she had to know. Her eyes blinked open and her breath tumbled out of her as she instantly found his eyes staring back. Half turned, frozen in the moment of seeing her, he didn't move an inch. She feared his eyes, but looking away felt equally dangerous. Never before had so much weighed on such a small movement, but she pushed herself to look, instead, at Leia, who had finally turned away from the man, and was instead staring now at Rey. Even with a brain butchered by panic and overdosing on adrenaline, Rey could instantly recognise that fear was plastered over Leia's face. 

An arm shot out – the man's – and Rey realised that this was it, this was her ending. She was lifted up, paralysed mid air, only her eyes still within her control. And yet, she couldn't move them away from the face of the man who would become her murderer. Long and twisted, framed by darkness, this was what evil looked like. 

A dark eye twitched, Rey's neck twisted upwards, her throat exposed.

“I won't let you, Ben,” she heard Leia say.

Her throat began to ache and she exhaled the pain, whimpering as she did so. She tried to breathe again, but the rising pressure in her throat stopped her. Frantically, she kept trying, but resisting only used up what little oxygen lingered in her lungs. She was choking, running out of air, she closed her eyes, tried with all her might to breathe, but it was hopeless.

In films, there was always a flashback, a montage of the best bits that played before the dying man's eyes, but when Rey pushed into her mind with her last shred of consciousness, she found nothing except a fury that she couldn't think of anything. The nothingness started to grow, spilling from her mind into her chest, her lungs, falling through her limbs to her fingertips and feet.

And then she dropped. Her hands automatically lurched forward as she felt herself plummet, and she hit the floor with an impact which crashed through her bones, leaving her palms sore and her knees stinging. She didn't realise she had any air left inside of her, but it was knocked out before she sharply inhaled, and air flooded back through her throat.

She heard noises, people, talking and muttering. The mass of bodies, still on the floor, started to move, to get up, to notice the broken glasses, the bloody body. 

Before could stand, Rey saw Leia, still stood in the same place, but the man was gone. Their eyes met, but then a scream pierced the air, and people began to obscure her view. She heard sobbing, and then there were shouts to 'call an ambulance' and 'ring 999'. She heard Leia's voice among the sprawl of noise, asking people to stand back. 

Rey had to leave, right then she didn't care about anything else. She didn't take the closest exit, the one the man must of fled through, instead pushing her way towards the door of the staff staircase. She went two steps at a time, almost tripping on several occasions, until she hit the ground level and saw a green fire exit sign hammered on a door. She burst into the street, the evening air drawn to her clammy skin. The streets were normal, unchanged by the events she had just witnessed, and she walked through them desperately, endlessly, until she no longer recognised where she was.


End file.
